independent position Ladislaw had taken up. I saw the letters between them, you know. Poor Casaubon was a little buried in books—he didn’t know the world.”
“It’s all very well for Ladislaw to put that color on it,” said Sir James. “But I believe Casaubon was only jealous of him on Dorothea’s account, and the world will suppose that she gave him some reason; and that is what makes it so abominable—coupling her name with this young fellow’s.”
“My dear Chettam, it won’t lead to anything, you know,” said Mr. Brooke, seating himself and sticking on his eyeglass again. “It’s all of a piece with Casaubon’s oddity. This paper, now, ‘Synoptical Tabulation’ and so on, ‘for the use of Mrs. Casaubon,’ it was locked up in the desk with the will. I suppose he meant Dorothea to publish his researches, eh? and she’ll do it, you know; she has gone into his studies uncommonly.”
“My dear sir,” said Sir James, impatiently, “that is neither here nor there. The question is, whether you don’t see with me the propriety of sending young Ladislaw away?”
“Well, no, not the urgency of the thing. By-and-by, perhaps, it may come round. As to gossip, you know, sending him away won’t hinder gossip. People say what they like to say, not what they have chapter and verse for,” said Mr. Brooke, becoming acute about the truths that lay on the side of his own wishes. “I might get rid of Ladislaw up to a certain point—take away the Pioneer from him, and that sort of thing; but I couldn’t send him out of the country if he didn’t choose to go—didn’t choose, you know.”
Mr. Brooke, persisting as quietly as if he were only discussing the nature of last year’s weather, and nodding at the end with his usual amenity, was an exasperating form of obstinacy.